Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found. The name, if all 14 different spellings are included, was shared by 5,991 newborn boys last year, beating Thomas into third place, followed by Joshua and Oliver.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jazp_islam-respects-women_events

Since then, more than fourteen hundred years have passed, and nobody has been able to meet the challenge, and nobody will, because the Qur’an is the only existing book containing the word of Allah which no man can match or imitate. The most eloquent people in the Arabic language spent years going over and searching the Qur’an, trying to find any weak or inadequate word or sentence, but they could not. They even went further, trying to find a way to substitute a word or a sentence in the Qur’an, hoping to convey a similar meaning as the original one, but they failed to do so.

As a result of this, many people, especially linguists, throughout the last fourteen hundred years believed in the Qur’an as a revelation beyond any human capacity.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/dyktb.html

Women in Mosque

CONTRARY to what Western media and academics would have us believe, it was Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and Islamic teachings that transformed the status of women from being a non-entity and ‘property’ to someone who plays a central role in grooming and holding a family together.

The pre-Islamic Arab world saw girl child as a burden and a curse which was to be eliminated as early as possible. Islam and its Messenger (peace be upon him) changed all this by restoring her respect and her rights. Commenting on the pre-Islamic conditions of women in Arab society,

Holy Quran says:

‘And when the news of (the birth of) a female (child) is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark, and he is filled with inward grief! He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that whereof he has been informed. Shall he keep her with dishonour or bury her in the earth? Certainly, evil is their decision.’ (Quran, 16:58-59)

Read full article

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2007/April/opinion_April21.xml&section=opinion&col=

“O ye who believe! Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will.

Holding an American flag and wearing a grin beneath her head scarf, Wardaw Chaudhary, a 16-year-old from Tulsa, radiated confidence and optimism, the perfect cover girl to grace the first issue of Muslim Girl magazine.

Launched in January with the tag line “Enlighten Celebrate Inspire,” the bimonthly magazine targets what Editor in Chief Ausma Khan says are 400,000 Muslim teenage girls in North America, who, like other teenagers, want a magazine that reflects their lifestyles and aspirations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301438.html

Last year, Melissa and John Cummings lost their oldest son, Ryan, in Iraq.

This year, they found new appreciation for life in Waleed Nasir, a Muslim exchange student from Pakistan.

Waleed moved in with the Crystal Lake family in August, a little more than two months after Ryan was killed.

“We were in such a state of shock and mourning,” said Melissa Cummings, Waleed’s host parent. “I just didn’t think we were the best place for him.”

But the family’s worries subsided when she and her husband saw 16-year-old Waleed’s smiling face at the airport.

He was so excited about everything, Melissa Cummings said, that it made them all value how lucky they were.

“Especially after what happened last year to our son Ryan, it has been a blessing,” she said.

Waleed has become best friends with his host brother Jason, 14

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2007/03/11/news/local/doc45f392315af56884525374.txt

[Qur'an 5:82-83]

And thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud. When they listen to that which hath been revealed unto the messengers, thou seest their eyes overflow with tears because of their recognition of the Truth.
They say: Our Lord, we believe. Inscribe us as among the witnesses

You can find many converts from Christianity to Islam there, as well as Christians who are learning more about Islam.

* Dr. Jerald F. Dirks – Former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master’s degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver. Author of The Cross and the Crescent: An Interfaith Dialogue between Christianity and Islam (ISBN 1-59008-002-5 – Amana Publications, 2001).

* Abdullah al-Faruq – Formerly Kenneth L. Jenkins, minister and elder of the Pentecostal Church

* Viacheslav Polosin – Former Archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church

* Anselm Tormeeda – 14th century CE scholar and priest

* Khadijah ‘Sue’ Watson – Former pastor, missionary, professor. Master’s degree in Divinity

* Ibrahim Khalil – Former Egyptian Coptic priest

* Anonymous Female Missionary – Former Catholic missionary

* Martin John Mwaipopo – Former Lutheran Archbishop

* Raphael – Former Jehovah’s Witness minister

* George Anthony – Former Catholic priest

* Dr. Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) – Former missionary

Join the discussion board and share your views
http://www.missionislam.com/comprel/former.htm

The tiling in medieval Islamic architecture turns out to embody a mathematical insight that Westerners thought they had discovered only 30 years ago.

March 19, 2007 issue – Ancient, closely held religious secrets; messages encoded on the walls of Middle Eastern shrines; the divine golden ratio—readers of a recent issue of the journal Science must have wondered if they’d mistakenly picked up “The Da Vinci Code” instead. In stretches of intricate tiling on several 500-year-old Islamic buildings, Peter Lu and Paul Steinhardt wrote, they’d spotted a large fragment of a mathematical pattern that was unknown to Western science until the 1970s. Islam gave the world algebra, from the Arabic al-jabr, a term referring to a basic equation. But this pattern is far from basic; it comes from much higher math. “The ridiculous thing is, this pattern has been staring Westerners in the face all this time,” says Keith Critchlow, author of the book “Islamic Patterns.” “We simply haven’t been able to read it.” Now that we can, though, it is serving as a startling indication of how accomplished medieval-era Muslims may have been.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17553752/site/newsweek/